scholarly journals Fatherhood, gender and the making of professional identity in large law firms: bringing men into the frame

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Collier
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Corporate Law ◽  
Law Firms ◽  
Law Firm ◽  
Organisational Commitment ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Family Work ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Cultural Shifts

AbstractThis paper reframes debates about gender equality in the legal professions by interrogating the practices of men and interconnections between fatherhood, gender and parenting within the specific context of large corporate law firms. Drawing on interviews with male lawyer-fathers, it argues that closer exploration of fatherhood reveals much about the gendered dynamics of identity formation as a legal professional in this sector. A set of ideas about fatherhood, the paper suggests, shape how men's work can define a distinctive gender identity as a ‘family man’ and good lawyer. Political-economic and cultural shifts around fatherhood, however, are reconfiguring and adapting gender relations in law in a number of contradictory ways with implications for understanding the place of men in relation to gender-equality agendas. Ideas about fatherhood, family, work and career, I argue, are mobilised and enmeshed within the reproduction of distinctive law-firm cultures and gendered ideas of organisational commitment. What, in short, might it mean to bebotha ‘good father’ and a ‘good lawyer’?

Frames

2021 ◽  
pp. 45-72
Author(s):  
Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Law Firms ◽  
New Work ◽  
Law Firm ◽  
New Firms ◽  
Law Schools ◽  
Indian Law ◽  
Ideal Worker

This chapter explores the role of institutional novelty in moderating the experience of gender. It shows how the emergence of the Indian elite law firm has been uniquely shaped by the newness of the work and the organizational structure — as well as a new, neoliberal workforce not found in other professional firms of similar status. As new firms doing new work, these elite law firms are indeed advantaged by being able to escape strong preconceived notions of work and identity. In addition, the newness of the law schools that socialize these firms' workers contribute to the firms' multi-layered advantage, an advantage not enjoyed by other firms that are similarly structured by globalization but that draw their workforce from more long-established educational institutions. Ultimately, the chapter demonstrates how globalization and class come together to renegotiate traditional assumptions of gender and the framework of an ideal worker. It argues that the gender outcomes in these firms result not from a movement for gender equality, but instead from the emergence of the Indian law firm as a new site of high-prestige global labor.

The New Place of Corporate Law Firms in the Structuring of Elite Legal Careers

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 339-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronit Dinovitzer ◽  
Bryant Garth
Keyword(s):  
Sequence Analysis ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Corporate Law ◽  
Law Firms ◽  
Law Firm ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Law Degree ◽  
At Home

For more than a century, a partnership position in a large corporate law firm has almost universally been held out as the singular mark of success for those with a law degree. We find that despite significant transformations in the profession, including dramatic expansion in size and the opening of corporate law positions to women, minorities, and the graduates of lower-ranked schools, the powerful and prestigious positions of corporate law partners remain largely reserved for those with the most elite credentials and other characteristics—male, white, wife at home—that defined law firm partners before the great period of change. By examining the continuity and change in the sorting of legal elites, we find evidence that the experience of a position in a corporate law firm now bestows advantages even for those who do not make partner. What was once deemed a failure—not making partner—is now a source of valued capital that leads to careers in in-house positions, boutique firms, the federal government, and a host of nonequity partner positions. We draw on thirteen years of lawyers’ career histories from the After the JD study, using the techniques of sequence analysis and qualitative interviews.

Who Cares? The Conundrum for Gender Equality in Legal Practice

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Thornton
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Corporate Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Law Firms ◽  
Legal Practice ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Flexible Work ◽  
Shared Parenting

Although women comprise the majority of practitioners in legal practice in Australia, the question of who cares remains an enduring challenge for gender equality. Against the backdrop of social and policy changes resulting from the feminisation of labour, this article pays particular attention to the role of flexible work in legal practice. It draws on two empirical projects – one involving corporate law firms and the other involving NewLaw firms. As the results were somewhat ambivalent, the article then turns to the feasibility of shared parenting regimes by drawing on studies from Scandinavia. These studies show that the unencumbered worker ideal is nevertheless resistant to sustained absences from work even though the norms of fatherhood are changing. The competing narratives of the ‘new father’ and the unencumbered worker who devotes himself to work therefore produce a paradox that underscores the ongoing elusiveness of gender equality in legal practice.

Legal Reform, Law Firms, and Lawyer Stratification in Japan

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mayumi Nakamura
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Legal Reform ◽  
Law School ◽  
Population Increase ◽  
Law Firms ◽  
Judicial Reform ◽  
Law Firm ◽  
Law School Graduates

AbstractIn many countries, the size of a law firm is closely related to the specializations and incomes of the lawyers it employs, and can be considered an index for disparities among lawyers. Gender and school prestige may affect the size of the first firm that lawyers join. Moreover, since the lawyer population has quadrupled over the last 20 years in Japan, mainly due to judicial reform, I hypothesize that this population increase has changed how gender and school prestige affect the size of the first firm law school graduates decide to join. To test this, I conducted a secondary statistical analysis on the effect of gender and school prestige on the size of the first firm that lawyers joined, using survey data collected by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations in 2010. Findings suggest that there were no significant differences in the size of women’s and men’s first employer, but that school prestige was significant. Moreover, the importance of school prestige has increased over the years.

Narrative Identities and the Egalitarian Norm Among Hungarian Elite Couples

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (7) ◽  
pp. 2107-2130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernadett Csurgó ◽  
Luca Kristóf
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Individual Interviews ◽  
Cultural Elite ◽  
Underrepresentation Of Women ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Political Economic

Our article aims to study the attitudes of the elite to family life and gender equality. This is a social group who still experiences significant gender imbalances. We focus on attitudes to family life, which has thus far been underresearched in elite literature. With the help of the analysis of 34 individual interviews with members of the Hungarian political, economic, and cultural elite, we identify and present three types of narrative identities: dominant, deferential, and egalitarian. The main finding from our qualitative content analysis is that egalitarian partnership norms which were discussed in every narrative and gender equality appear in most cases as a norm among the elite. However, there is a narrative tension between this norm and the couples’ actual experiences of their family life. We conclude our article with some comments on how the ideology of egalitarian essentialism strengthens gender inequalities reinforcing the underrepresentation of women in elite positions.

scholarly journals KEKERASAN TERHADAP PEREMPUAN (Mengapa Masyarakat Terbiasa Lecehkan Perempuan ?)

EGALITA ◽  
2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agus Maimun
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Gender Issues ◽  
Alternative Solution ◽  
Gender Perspective ◽  
Political Economic

Men's subordination towards women still exists in public, social, political, economic as well as cultural areas. Consequently, that kind of social construction negates the representative of women's right due to fear of the present of women's body which trespasses religious and social norms. In fact, any religion and humanity refuse such kinds of discriminition or intimidation towards women.  Harassment towards women can be analized through social, moral, emotional, motivational as well as consept of personality  perspectives. As the alternative solution for aforementioned problems, efforts can be taken such as reinterpreties religious doctrines based on gender perspective, criticizies sexism myths, socializies gender equality to the society and establish the institution concerning gender issues.

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